Online portal AOL and premium cable channel HBO have announced they are partnering to create a comedy-based broabband video channel named This Just In. The site will be led by Steve Stanford, who founded the humor site Icebox.com, and focus on current-events humor in a blog-like format and offering extensive video content.
This Just In will replace AOL’s existing online comedy offerings; it will not feature any current HBO television programming—although HBO archival footage of standup comics might be on tap, and the site might serve as a testbed for programming which migh migrate upward to AOL’s on-demand and mobile offerings.
The move marks HBO’s first original foray into the online world as the company seeks to diversity its offerings: as the company’s core audience for paid subscription television reaches a zenith, the company is looking to expand into additional media niches. HBO’s recent talent deals with comedian Dane Cook and the Simmons Lathan Media Group have included unspecified “new media” components, and the network confirmed it has signed former Rocketboom host Amanda Congdon for on-camera and online material.
For its part, AOL seems thrilled just to be able to associate its name with HBO’s…which might be more important in the near future as parent company Time Warner increasingly considers un-merging itself with AOL. Advertising and sponsorships for This Just In will be sold through AOL Media Networks.
This Just In raises the stakes for both broadband video—and online comedy offerings—competing with TBS‘s recently announced Funny or Not? user-generated video site, as well as increasingly popular online offerings from basic cable channel Comedy Central, centered around popular series like South Park and news-show spoofs The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.
